I swallow. “Yeah?” I call.
Nothing.
I swing my legs off the bed, walk to the door, and look out the peephole.
Reece.
His arms are crossed, his shoulders tense, as he glares at my door.
He’s breathing hard, and my stupid brain wonders if he’s maybe a little sweaty beneath the shirt. Wonder if his back would be slick against my palms, his chest damp as he presses me down on the bed, skin to skin…
I rest my forehead on the door, tapping it lightly against the wood.
Damn it, Lucy. Learn your lesson already.
“Open the door.”
His voice is quiet and commanding, and even as I open my mouth to tell him to screw off, my hand finds the chain lock.
A second later, there’s no door between us. Nothing but tension and want separating our yearning bodies.
He steps closer. “Damn it, Lucy,” he says gruffly, stopping a foot away from me. Close enough to feel his body heat, but not as close as I want. Need.
“Why are you always mad at me,” I whisper. “I can’t do anything right.”
“Mad,” he says with a laugh. “That’s what you think this is?” Reece reaches out a hand, slips it into my hair, palming my head as he tilts my face up. “I’m not mad.”
I open my mouth, to say…I don’t even know what. Instead, I shake my head. We can’t do this—we shouldn’t do this.
Reece’s fingers tighten. “Tell me, Lucy.”
It’s a command.
“Tell you what?” I ask, giving in to the heat of his gaze and everything it promises.
“That you want this. That you want me.”
His words are gruff, but his eyes are vulnerable and it nearly destroys me. The part of my heart that’s always been his opens just the tiniest bit.
I meet his eyes. “I want this. I want you.”
His eyes flash in victory, and his other arm wraps around me at the exact moment his mouth takes mine.
Chapter 27
Reece
I’m no philosopher, but if my twenty-five years have taught me anything it’s that every guy hits a crossroads. That proverbial fork in the road.
For me, the moment was when I’d looked down into the eyes of the girl who’d been my everything for ten years, knowing that kissing her would mean losing her. Of thinking that having her once would be less painful than having only a little bit of her forever.
I was nineteen and dumb. And wrong. Dead wrong, about having her once being enough to buffer the pain of having her walk out of my life.
Just a week ago, I would have sworn that I learned my lesson.
And yet here I am, in a shitty motel in the middle of nowhere, making the whole mistake all over again.
Trouble is? None of this feels like a mistake.